Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai Prime Minister and current owner of the Manchester City football team, skipped bail in Thailand today and went into exile in London.
He alleges that political enemies who removed him in a 2006 coup were meddling in the courts to 'finish off' him and his family.
In a hand-written statement faxed to news outlets from his refuge in London, the 59-year-old telecommunications billionaire apologised to the Supreme Court for failing to appear in a corruption case involving him and his wife Potjaman.
She was sentenced last month to three years in jail for tax fraud, but was freed on bail pending an appeal. The couple's departure for China with a large amount of luggage immediately after the verdict sparked rumours they were going into exile.
Analysts say it was probably the prospect of his wife doing jail time that forced Mr Shinawatra to leave the country.
The court responded by issuing arrest warrants for the couple and seizing 13 million baht (€256,000) in bail bonds.
Mr Shinawatra was due to return to Bangkok from the Olympic Games with his wife on Sunday evening but quietly took a plane to London instead the previous day, an aide said.
In addition to his ownership of the football club Manchester City, he has a property in a swish west London district and at least one of his adult children is studying in London.
After his removal by the army in 2006, mainly on the pretext of 'rampant corruption', Thaksin spent much of his time in the British capital, as well as in Hong Kong and Beijing.
The army-appointed interim government looked into trying to extradite him under a bilateral criminal treaty signed with Britain in 1911, but never lodged a formal request.
So What Next?
His decision to flee rather than fight a slew of corruption charges lodged since the coup helped lift the stock market 2% on hopes political temperatures might cool after three years of turmoil.
Analysts said it could mean the government that came to power in December elections on the back of Mr Shinawatra's rural popularity might get a break from round-the-clock, anti-Shinawatra street protests and be able to concentrate on the economy.
After interviews with several analysts, our news partner Reuters compiled these three possible scenarios:
1) Pressure kept on government, the Pro-Shinawatra People Power Party and/or cabinet suspended
The government continues to feel pressure from its opponents and the courts in the form of an electoral fraud charge against the ruling People Power Party (PPP), widely seen as a Thaksin proxy.
However, before any ruling, maybe as early as next month, the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) decides to press ahead with an investigation into the entire cabinet for backing Cambodia's bid to list a disputed Hindu temple as a World Heritage site.
Under the army-drafted, post-coup constitution, the cabinet is suspended from office the moment the NCCC starts its probe.
It is not clear how the power vacuum would be filled, but it would presumably have to involve elections.
Even if the cabinet survives the NCCC case, analysts say the PPP could well be disbanded by the Supreme Court for vote fraud before the end of the year, leading to another election.
With both cases looking as though they may lead to more polls, firebrand PM Samak Sundaravej is likely to roll out more populist projects in the interim to position himself well for any run-off.
2) With Mr Shinawatra gone, opponents back off government
With Mr Shinawatra effectively confined to the political scrap heap, his opponents in the military and royalist establishment could give the PPP a break and back off.
The courts and NCCC also take a more lenient view of the PPP and the cabinet, letting them off and allowing the shaky administration to muddle through at a time of stagnating growth and decade-high inflation.
Most analysts do not see this happening, given the depth of hatred in the establishment for Mr Shinawatra and his associates, who make up almost the entire cabinet.
3) PPP falls apart, coalition collapses
With Mr Shinawatra gone, various factions within the PPP vie for supremacy of a political party that has almost no ideological base.
Despite PM Samak's attempts to impose authority, the PPP quickly splinters, leading to the collapse of the six-party coalition and another general election in which the opposition Democrat Party, the country's oldest party, could sneak to victory.
Timeline
The current conflict has played out most significantly over the past three years.
Here is a timeline of events:
2005
* September: Sondhi Limthongkul, a disgruntled former business associate, starts the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a street campaign dedicated to ousting Mr Shinawatra. Mr Limthongkul argues that Mr Shinawatra's huge parliamentary majority makes him corrupt.
2006
* 2 April: Mr Shinawatra wins a snap election designed to silence Mr Limthongkul's increasingly biting criticism, but the victory is undermined by an opposition boycott that renders the result void. Judges annul the entire poll a few weeks later.
* 19 September: Military stages coup while Mr Shinawatra is at UN headquarters in New York. He then retreats into exile in London.
* 1 October: Former army commander-in-chief Surayud Chulanont sworn in as interim prime minister.
2007
* 26 March: Prosecutors charge Potjaman Shinawatra, her brother and secretary with tax evasion.
* 30 May: Mr Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai party is dissolved for breaking election laws. Mr Shinawatra and 110 other senior party members are banned from politics for five years.
* 20 August: Voters endorse new military-drafted constitution, the 18th in 75 years of on-off democracy.
* 23 December: Pro-Shinawatra People Power Party (PPP) falls just short of outright majority in a general election.
2008
* 8 January: Mrs Shinawatra returns to Thailand after months of exile to fight corruption charges.
* 28 January: PPP leader Samak Sundaravej elected prime minister at head of six-party coalition.
* 28 February: Mr Shinawatra returns to thunderous welcome at Bangkok airport after 18 months in exile.
* 10 March: Charges filed against Mr Shinawatra over illegal use of state lottery funds. He pleads not guilty.
* 25 May: PAD resumes its street protests, this time to overthrow what it says is a 'Thaksin puppet' government.
* 31 July: Mrs Shinawatra sentenced to three years' jail for tax fraud. Freed on bail, she and Mr Shinawatra fly to Beijing for the Olympic Games opening ceremony on 8 August.
* 11 August: Mr Shinawatra and wife fail to return from Beijing to report to the courts. He issues a statement blaming his flight on his opponents' meddling in the judicial system.
